"The Evictors" takes place in a rural Louisiana town in 1942 and is also based on a true story. A young couple from New Orleans move into their dream house in the woods of Louisiana. The home seems ideal for a wife to fix up while the husband is out working his new job. The previous owners are still attached to the house and will do anything they have to in order to get it back for themselves. The new owners begin to fear for their lives as a mysterious stranger stalks and violently threatens them.I've found a new favorite director in Charles B. Pierce. He is the perfect example of a filmmaker who doesn't need to lean on graphic imagery and gore to get a viewer's blood pumping. He is a believer in the "less is more" school of thought and it works perfectly for him. Pierce slowly builds tension and then lets it explode on you at the last minute. You know something dreadful is coming but are still creeped out about it when it finally arrives.Although "The Evictors" isn't a completely true story, all you have to do is a little investigating to know there's still quite a bit of validity in what happens on screen. I think that's what makes the film even more frightening. The thought that real people went through these ordeals in some form or another. I also found it interesting that besides some bad language, "The Evictors" was rather clean for this type of movie. There wasn't any nudity to be seen. I was wondering why this was until I read that director Pierce was a Baptist.

1942.Ben and Ruth Watkins rent a house in Southern Louisiana.Soon Ruth is subject to a series of terrifying attacks while she is alone.They discover that the attacks have something to do with the house's past and that the rental agency did not tell them that all previous inhabitants have died under violent and mysterious circumstances."The Evictors" was made by Charles B.Pierce of "The Legend of Boggy Creek" and "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" fame.Like those two it is supposedly based on facts.The atmosphere is very eerie during the flashbacks and the acting is excellent.It's great to see Jessica Harper aka Suzy Bannion from masterful "Suspiria" in the main role.8 out of 10.

As horror films go, THE EVICTORS is slightly above the usual stuff that was released back then. The acting and production values are good. The cinematography is gorgeous. The Vestron VHS tape I watched had the film in an uncompressed anamorphic transfer. Everything looked squished but my TV has a 16x9 option and when I activated it, the VHS image was widescreen and beautiful. I loved the sepia toned scenes (they are flashbacks). They give the film a distinctive quality. The film's biggest weakness is the story. It sorta comes into its own by the end of the film but even so it's still pretty weak.The story is about a couple who are terrorized by a mysterious man who lurks around a house they recently moved in, a house with a long history of suspicious violent deaths. The wife (played by the wonderful Jessica Harper) is repeatedly terrorized by the lurker when the husband is away. This storyline works on a certain level but the character who plays the lurker/murderer is no Michael or Jason. That aspect of the story was severely underwritten and when the revelation of who this lurker is and why he's terrorizing the couple, what gloomy & mysterious atmosphere the film so meticulously created vanished in a blink of an eye. But the revelation is not bad enough to destroy the whole film. It's just too corny, too a la Scooby Doo.The other annoying thing about this film is the pacing. It's a tad slow going. The action eventually picks up in the second half but the first half was very casual.Even with all its faults, I still enjoyed THE EVICTORS. It's a gorgeous looking horror film and there's Jessica Harper, which always makes anything worth watching.

I saw this move when I was 15 yo and found it rather atmospheric and creepy. The backflashes to the murders of the past were nicely done too and the main characters in this flick behave in a manner that I at least found plausible. It's not a "no-holds-barred" terror movie or some "Friday the 13th"-clone, just a handsomely put together, semi-independent movie. However, the claim that this is a true story, is ridiculous and, considering the ending, not something even the filmmakers believe in.